"Don't gamble. Take all your savings and buy a good stock, and
hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy
it."

- Will Rogers

Stingy Links

ETF clutter
"For starters, when investors are looking for "simple and
transparent," ETFs are no longer the default. There still are many
clean, easy-to-understand ETFs to be had, but they're harder to find
among the proliferation of new products. Indeed, ETFs no longer
take a back seat to closed-end funds or mutual funds when it
comes to complexity, opaqueness and fine print."

The new paternalism
"Real people are susceptible to cognitive biases that can lead to
poor decisions. It's only natural to want to help them make
better choices. But no one is immune to bias. Not social
scientists, and certainly not policymakers. In translating behavioral
science into policy, we may be led astray by the very same cognitive
defects we wish to correct. New paternalist policies, and
indeed the intellectual framework of new paternalism itself, create a
serious risk of slippery slopes toward ever more intrusive
paternalism."

James Chanos interview
"James Chanos, President, Kynikos Associates. He is the man who
predicted the Enron downfall and now predicting a housing bubble
in China,"

Shocked sleuths discover shorts
"It's important to remember that with so many people in the
world, just calling a historical event is not sufficient because
there are always people predicting massive failure or success to any
policy. The key is whether they right for the right reasons, as
in Schiff's case, or right for the wrong reasons, as in Roubini
or Taleb's cases."

They're clipping your dividends
"Come next January the favorable 15% rate on dividends will
expire, making them subject to taxation as "ordinary income." At the
same time the maximum rate is kicking up from 35% to 39.6%. The
third thing that will happen in 2011 is the resurrection of a
rule that ostensibly limits deductions but for the majority of
taxpayers is nothing but a boost in their tax bracket. This rule
adds 1.2 percentage points to your rate. In 2013 comes a fourth
tax increase: a 3.8% surtax on investment income. Add it up.
Dividends that used to be taxed at 15% are set to be taxed at 44.6%."

Fun tax facts
"Centuries ago, when the Papal State dominated Tuscany, these
rulers imposed an extremely high tax on salt. As a form of protest,
Tuscan bakers began to make their bread without salt.
Gradually, the taste for bread made entirely without salt became
widespread, and to this day, Tuscan bread is salt less"

Nudge this
"In the Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson notes the paradox of
behavioral economics, that proving people are often irrational then
begs the question as to why we think some subset of
intellectuals or regulators are more rational"

The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell
"I got the feeling that our clients were simply trying to mimic
successful businesses, and that as consultants, our earnings came
from having the luck of being included in an elaborate
cargo-cult ritual."

Mohnish Pabrai interview
"'All man's miseries stem from his inability to sit in a room
alone and do nothing.' And all I'd like to do to adapt Pascal is,
'All investment managers' miseries stem from the inability to sit
alone in a room and do nothing.'"

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